Plastic Bag Consumption Cut by 54% in 12 Months

It has been one year since Red River Co-op food stores began charging 5-cents per plastic grocery bag in an effort to promote reuse, while pledging to donate the profit from each bag sold to the Green Action Centre. In the past 12 months, Red River Co-op has diverted over three million plastic bags from landfill – a 54% reduction from the previous year.

“We would like to thank shoppers for supporting this campaign and choosing reuse first at our food stores,” said Doug Wiebe, CEO of Red River Co-op. “It takes community to make such an impact and we are proud to accomplish this 3,000,000 reduction of plastic bags together with our customers and members.”

In an effort to further support environmental sustainability in Manitoba, Red River Co-op decided to donate the profit made from plastic bag sales to the Green Action Centre. On the one-year anniversary of the partnership’s launch, Red River Co-op made a donation of $12,755.81 to the non-profit organization. Funds donated by Red River Co-op will support Green Action Centre’s Composting Education Program and new Food Waste Presentation, which takes a holistic view of food waste, focusing on composting as well as food waste prevention measures.

Green Action Centre delivers public presentations, workshops, and other down to earth solutions to help Manitobans reduce their food waste and take action on climate change. With this support, they will be able to reach approximately 300 Manitobans through this new presentation.

“We were excited to partner with Red River Co-op on their plastic bag reduction strategy and we are pleased to see such a significant reduction in the single use bags distributed in their stores over the past year,” said Tracy Hucul, Executive Director of Green Action Centre. “The production of plastic bags produces toxic greenhouse gasses which negatively affect our climate and are also harmful to wildlife, marine life as well as well as our overall soil health.”

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Green Action Centre is a not-for-profit environmental education organization that focuses on providing practical solutions for sustainable living. Anyone interested in supporting Green Action Centre’s Composting and Food Waste Reduction programs, or other waste reduction efforts, can make a charitable donation at www.greenactioncentre.ca.